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Here are five gripping episodes of early Pern - from the very first space survey recommending colonisation, to the last, where the early world, its young dragon culture undetected, is condemned to be isolated in space.

Here is the saga of the mass evacuation from the volcanic southern continent, an entire group of people moved across the dangerous seas, guarded and guided by a flotilla of dolphins. Here, too, is the story of the creation of Ruatha Hold - a mammoth undertaking in the early days of Pern.

And here is one of the most fascinating dragon tales ever written by Anne McCaffrey, when Fort Weyr was the only weyr, and when dragonriders and dragons were overcrowded to danger point. As the news broke of three fresh weyrs to be established, a young girl, Torene, came to realize that her dragon could be the next Queen of the newly formed Benden Weyr.

About the Author

Anne McCaffrey was one of the world's leading science-fiction writers, and has won both the Hugo and Nebula awards as well as the Margaret A. Edwards' Lifetime Achievement Literary Award. Born and raised in the US, although of Irish extraction, she lived in Ireland, in the heart of the Wicklow Mountains, where, as well as writing, she bred horses. She was the creator of the Dragons of Pern series. She died in November 2011.

Four originals, one magazine reprint: the first story collection centered on McCaffrey's immensely popular Dragonriders and their battle to keep planet Pern free of the invidious, corrosive Thread. As the title implies, the stories form a sort of chronology of the early days of Pern's colonization. The original survey and exploration team designate the planet as P.E.R.N.: parallel Earth, resources negligible. After colonization, the Southern Continent must be evacuated following a volcanic eruption, the colonists in their fragile ships aided by intelligent, talking dolphins. Famed Ruatha Hold is founded by big, genial Irishman Red Hanrahan. Later, after resounding success in destroying Thread before it can fall to ground, the Dragonriders expand into a second, then a third Weyr. Finally, a remnant of the original colonists, cut off from the Dragonrider groups, are rescued by a Federation vessel before the Pern system and its cometary cloud, permeated with deadly Thread organisms, is interdicted, and so cut off from the rest of humanity. Fairly mediocre stories, overall, but don't underestimate the crowd-pulling power of McCaffrey's all-but-legendary planet. (Kirkus Reviews)